Maxim Ferschtman and Cristina de la Serna provide a detailed analysis of the Spanish Supreme Court’s recent judgement overturning the “burqa ban” in the Catalonian city of Lleida. They argue that the ruling “could provide a precedent to prevent broader bans at both the local and the national level”.
California: Anti-Muslim bigot gets slap on wrist from GOP
The San Bernardino County Republican Party committee member who made anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh remarks will receive a letter of reprimand from the county GOP but will not be asked to step down from her post.
In the days leading to a March 2 election for California Republican Party leaders, Vera Eyzendooren railed against Harmeet Dhillon, a Sikh woman from San Francisco who was a candidate for state vice chair. Dhillon won.
“I was told by one of Harmeet’s friends that because of her religion, her loyalty is to the Muslim religion,” Eyzendooren wrote in a Facebook post. “So she will defend a Muslim beheading 2 men without any hesitation … She is not a Republican.”
Sikhism is a separate religion from Islam, but Sikhs often are mistaken for Muslims.
The executive committee of the county GOP decided at its meeting Thursday night, March 21, to “give her a letter of reprimand and move on,” said the county party chairman, Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills.
Leicester scout hut at centre of religion protests to reopen
A former scout hut which was the focus of protests over plans to turn it into an Islamic centre is to reopen.
Last year the As-Salaam Trust said it wanted to take over the building in Thurnby Lodge, Leicester, after using it for prayer meetings for some months.
A residents group organised a series of protests and a petition, calling for it to be used for the wider community.
But the residents group has been given a rent-free lease of the hut and the As-Salaam Trust will use a nearby site.
Several protests, some attracting hundreds of people and requiring a significant police presence, were held over the issue.
The residents have refitted the building with donated goods since January, when the two-and-a-half-year rent-free lease was agreed.
Originally called the Forgotten Estates, the group is now known as the 55th Community Association, named after the old scout group.
Stavropol court rejects lawsuit against hijab ban
The Stavropol Territorial Court has rejected a lawsuit against the ban on wearing headdresses to school, including the hijab, a Moscow lawyer said on Friday.
Lawyer Murad Musayev filed the lawsuit on behalf of the region’s Muslim people, who seek to annul the new school uniform requirements introduced last September.
“The court has rejected our lawsuit,” he said. “I believe this ruling was politically motivated. We will find out why the court ruled against our lawsuit in five days when they send the hearing documents to us.” He added that he plans to appeal the decision.
Daily Mail links Islam to mass murder
Earlier this week the Daily Mail published a story headlined “Dark Knight killer James Holmes ‘is now a Muslim who prays five times a day'”. The report began:
“James Holmes, the gunman behind the Dark Knight massacre in Colorado last July, has reportedly turned Muslim and prays five times a day. The killer showed off a lengthy, thick beard during a court appearance earlier this month, and a prison source has claimed it is a symbol of his new-found faith. The source said Holmes has turned to Islam as a way of justifying his horrific murder spree in an Aurora, Colorado cinema on July 20 which left 12 people dead and 58 people wounded.”
German spies accused of racism, Islamophobia
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is a hotbed of “institutional racism,” where Islamophobic, racist and offensive remarks are an everyday occurrence, a newspaper reported on Friday.
Germany’s security service the Verfassungsschutz is a hornet’s nest of conflict, envy, jealousy and inappropriate insults, wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung, citing inside sources.
And they aren’t just innocent office jokes. Employees of the department tasked with observing militant Islamists reportedly throw around deeply offensive, Nazi-affiliated words in private of the kind which would be unthinkable in a public setting.
Student senate at UC Berkeley passes resolution condemning lecturer’s Islamophobic hate speech
On Wednesday evening, the Associated Students at the University of California (ASUC) at Berkeley voted unanimously to support a resolution “condeming Islamophobic hate speech at the University of California.”
The resolution focused on the recent incident of the outrageously racist and Islamophobic hate speech of Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, who was videotaped in June 2012 saying that campus activists involved in Students for Justice in Palestine and Muslim student organizations have ties to “terrorist organizations.”
Rossman-Benjamin, as The Electronic Intifada has extensively reported, is the co-founder of an outside political group, the Amcha Initiative, which seeks out students and professors who criticize Israel or engage in Palestine solidarity activism, accuse them of “anti-Semitism,” and urge university administrations — or state officials — to take punitive action against them.
Far right ‘fights Islamic bigotry against women’
When it comes to the ideology of Islamophobia, fascists invent nothing new – they just take their inspiration from the mainstream media. I doubt most of them had even heard of sharia law or halal slaughter until the right-wing press decided to create moral panics over these issues. In embracing received anti-Muslim prejudice, the one contribution the racist far right does make is to give it an additional thuggish twist.
So, with the likes of the Daily Mail having helped to stir up controversy over so-called “gender segregation” at iERA’s recent public meeting at University College London, it was only a matter of time before far-right racists adopted this as their cause.
Toledo mosque arsonist can’t withdraw guilty plea, judge rules
A former Marine who admitted setting fire to an Ohio mosque because he wanted revenge for the killings of American troops overseas won’t be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, a judge ruled Thursday.
Randy Linn had asked to take back his admission to hate crime charges in January, a month after he explained in detail how he drove from his Indiana home to the suburban Toledo mosque and burned a prayer rug, causing extensive damage in the building.
Infidels’ leader in court over Sunderland mosque demonstration
The leader of far-right group the North East Infidels has appeared in court accused of causing disorder during a demonstration at the site of a new mosque in Sunderland.
Warren Faulkner, who leads a splinter group of the English Defence League, will be tried by a jury after he denied causing fear or provocation of violence at Sunderland Magistrates’ Court on Thursday March 21, 2013.
He also pleaded not guilty to possessing cocaine, a Class A drug.